Responsible for provisioning the internees, the German government did the bare minimum. Finally, vengeance played a role, too, in the decision to isolate the German sailors from each other and from the British: “We allow no communication whatsoever with the ships,” explained one British officer at the time: “It is as well to treat them as lepers after the way in which they have conducted the war for which they longed so much.”Ĭonditions on board the interned vessels were deplorable. This was, after all, the era of the first great “red scares,” the paranoid persecution and prosecution of socialists all over the world, including in the United States. Under certain well-defined circumstances, high-ranking German officers would be allowed to make trips to other vessels but only aboard one of the Royal Navy’s three “communication drifters.”Īs enemy combatants-and now from a country in the throes of communist revolution (which ultimately failed in January 1919)-the German sailors had to be kept separate, too, from the British civilian population and military personnel nearby. British authorities subsequently restricted and regulated all routes of communication, especially those emanating from Friedrich der Grosse, von Reuter’s ship. They also insisted on stripping all ships of wireless communications capabilities. In the meantime, the vessels had to be disarmed.īritish authorities oversaw the removal of the breechblocks, which immobilized the guns. Eventually, once the German government had signed the formal treaty of peace, the ships would be confiscated and their crews sent home. In small groups on 25, 26, and 27 November, Germany’s 11 battleships, 5 battle cruisers, 8 light cruisers, and 50 destroyers ( Torpedoboote) assumed their assigned positions in the bay. It was merely suspended, as the Germans, having sued for peace and agreed to the terms, still needed to sign a treaty that would formally end hostilities. There to meet the German flotilla was the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet, as well as a U.S. ![]() By 21 November, von Reuter and the bulk of Germany’s seaworthy surface fleet lay waiting near the Firth of Forth for further orders. ![]() Vessels, including submarines, began to leave Germany as early as 18 November 1918, one week after the Armistice agreement. Subsequently, the victors agreed upon Scapa Flow as the place of internment. before evacuation, surrender, or restoration.” The agreement also stipulated the terms of the surrender of surface ships, with Articles XXII and XXIII leaving some vessels in Germany to be dealt with later and assigning others to a foreign port, as yet undetermined, within 14 days. The Armistice and the Surrender of the Fleetīy signing the Armistice on 11 November 1918, the German government agreed with Article XXXI, which forbade the “destruction of ships or of materials. Meanwhile, in the first half of 1919, Wilson found himself in difficult negotiations with the other victors to produce a document that could officially end World War I. The country descended into what amounted to a civil war while the Germans’ foes in the west and the east looked on to see what would happen: a Bolshevik coup, as had occurred recently in Russia, or perhaps a liberal-democratic revolution, as President Woodrow Wilson hoped. In early November, the German war effort collapsed, with disorderly retreats, widespread mutinies, and a revolution that overthrew the Kaiser and established two rival republics. ![]() Attention to the greater context, however-on the ground in Germany, at the negotiating tables in and around Paris, and in Scapa Flow-reveals the political motivations and meaning of this spectacular act of defiance.īy the end of summer 1918, the German Empire had lost World War I in a swift defeat at the hands of Allied forces on the western front. ![]() A century later, it is still difficult to make sense of why, exactly, von Reuter took matters into his own hands in this way. Article XXXI of that legal document, which German military authorities signed back in November 1918, and therefore promised to obey, stated clearly that the Germans were not to destroy a single ship. In issuing these orders, von Reuter violated the terms of the Armistice. Abject military defeat, revolutionary insurrection, and a frustrated peace-this was the context in which German Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered his men to scuttle the German High Seas Fleet, interned at Scapa Flow, Scotland, on 21 June 1919.
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